Releasing the power of the church to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to care for the poor.

Thursday, 30 October 2014

October 29th Soroti

Wednesday 29th October

The day started with a serious mismatch
between the breakfast available and the number of guests at the Akello Hotel,
Ugandan chaos you can only experience and not tell. Fortunately everyone had
slept well so managed to retain a sense of humour on a limited breakfast for
the day ahead

Sam the PEP leader from PAG Sororti came to
meet us at the hotel and took us the the new-ish regional HQ for PAG for a
briefing in the day ahead. We were welcomed and prayed over by Bishop Sam who
has been in place for 6 months and seems to have established himself well.
There is a large and varied team at PAG of staff and volunteers who
enthusiastically introduced themselves as did the St James group. Sam explained
the work of PAG Soroti and Pastor Patrick outlined the PEP process in a very
informative session. Of note PAG supports 460 community projects in the region
and the PEP process in the region has led to the set up of about 60 new
schools.

Sam explained that the central and local
government of Teso region are pulling back from HIV/AIDS support consistent
with the Millennium goals and the priorities for health in Uganda and we would
start to observe the consequences with the projects. With that we set off to
make 3 site visits all 2-3 hours distant from Soroti.

The first visit was to Pingire where many
people have been before. It was for half the group their first experience of an
uninhibited Ugandan welcome with singing, dancing, ululating and unrestrained
joy at the "dear visitors" presence. The church in Pingire has been
completed (same as all the projects we visited) with a brand new roof and there
was a big gathering of people to meet us. Following prayers and greetings the community
leader explained the background of the PEP process since 2000 in Pingire with
the priorities they set for health, education and roads and the environment. We
heard several testimonies from members of the PEP groups on how lives had been
changed through community action. Particularly moving was the testimony from
Christine who is HIV positive being treated with antiretrovirals and she gave
thanks to God for PEP which had kept her alive She is a testimony ofalive changed through PEP and the work of PAG
supported by Love Africa.

This community has moved into a having a
savings and loan scheme which allows members to save, make small loans for
their needs and business activities and then at the end of a year share in the
interest (and fines ) paid. We saw a lady who had taken a loan to buy a cow
form and heard from a woman who took a loan to buy cassava from the market
which she roasted and sold to the local schoolchildren. We were shown a Love
Africa money box where the savings are kept. Each box has 3 locks and is kept
by a 4th person to ensure security.

In discussion it was clear that the
government support was being reduced. Several local clinics where people would
go for blood tests or drug supplies are being closed but the progress in this
community since we first visited is immense. The community's ability to
understand and live with HIV and work together is impressive.

On to Kadungulu and another extravagant
greeting and a community meeting in another completed church. PEP started here
in 2008. The Church leaders and community initially concentrated on resource
mobilisation from the community to address local needs such as house
construction (with bricks made from ant hills) new wells to provide fresh water
and then starting small businesses to provide money for school fees etc . The
community leader concentrated on the work of 7 community and church based
groups who have developed savings and loan schemes but also have been trained
in how to work as a group and to manage their funds. It turned out some of
these groups were actually new PEP based groups who had moved very quickly to
having savings and loan schemes (some within 6 months of forming and starting
Bible studies) Each has an inspirational name chosen by their members, e.g.
"talk and work group" "the narrow place that unites people"

Interestingly a couple of HIV negative
people gave testimonies about wanting to join "positive" groups as
they worked so well together! One man described his wife's concern at him
joining a "positive" group and suspected he was secretly positive!

(In discussion Sam expressed his concern at
the speed at which these groups were moving to form savings and loan schemes
without going through the longer process of setting community priorities based
on the PEP Bible studies and working in the community, but this is the priority
being set by the new groups and in fact many seem to be influenced by the
success of the initial PEP groups who act as facilitators and multipliers of
PEP.)

There were several testimonies from group
members about the transformational impact of PEP on their lives and
communities. "Boniface Ross" a PEP group leader, dressed in a suit
and tie (!) said there is now no difference between me and the President after
PEP. He summarised his experience of the group as;

a common benefit of the savings and loan
schemes

a spirit of working hard (not usual)

having money to have children educated
privately

develop fellowship and support across a
diverse group

abolished religious divisions

There was a representative of the local
government present and she spoke to the meeting and later showed us the way she
dispensed medication each month and took blood samples every 2 months for CD4
counts Again, we heard about withdrawal of local HIV support by the local government.

The Chairman of a PEP group summarised the
ethos of all the groups as "work hard, working together, working across
the religions and working under God" This really caught the attention of
our group.

The meeting concluded with prayers and long
farewells. Sam hoped to head back to Soroti at this stage as we were running
very late but the 3rd community had been waiting for our visit all day and
insisted we drive another 30 minutes to a landing stage community on the lake
at Kabwara where we saw a very different type of community. Four communities
had joined together for the meeting. This is an isolatedfishing community with a lot of crime (a man
had been murdered the night before), a site for illegal immigrants to enter
Uganda across the lake and high incidence of HIV in the community from casual
sexual relationships as many people do not live in family units. The leaders
complained of the withdrawal of HIV testing and a long trip to the health
facility in Serere. The feeling in the community that the incidence of HIV is
rising in this high risk community.

The community has 3 or 4 PEP groups, which
again have progressed with savings and loan schemes and were quite reluctant to
speak about the community successes from PEP. We were every short of time and
some people had already left as we were so late so we offered a word of
encouragement that focussed on how on re-enganging with the PEP process and
expecting God to create a new vision for them (Is 43, 18 and 19)

It was now very late and we were more than
3 hours from Soroti. We had an uncomfortable trip back on poor roads in the
dark for the last 2 hours. Thanks to Emma and Ken for safe driving. Despite the
late return the group were in good spirits, even more so when we found the
hotel had kept dinner for us! The conversation at dinner was intense around the
PEP process and trying to understand why the emphasis on HIV is being reduced
by the government

As dinner was finishing Matthew Omgar and
his wife arrived to meet with us. He sent his greetings to everyone at St James
and we spent some time listening to his plans and struggles since stepping down
as the Bishop 2 years ago

For the 1st day in the field this was
pretty extreme in terms of travel, length of the day and the issues exposed.
The first 2 communities are mature in the PEP process that St James has
supported in the last 6-7 years. Compared to where they started they have made
huge progress in their faith and community journeys and are now facing a more
uncertain future as they need to learn to be more independent. The savings and
loan schemes are clearly considered vital to their future.

It is important that an exposure visit also
sees communities that are struggling and all credit to PAG for taking us to
Kabwara and exposing us to the concerns of this dysfunctional community where
HIV is increasing. This is exactly the sort of community where the vision of
Love Africa "to mobilise the Church to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to
care for the poor" can be made to live as we look at possibilities for
future projects.

Thursday in Mbale with UWCM to look forward
to, after an early start.

Please remember in your prayers:

The leadership of PAG Soroti under Bishop
Sam as they discern their future in the changing environment for HIV/AIDS
relief

The communities of Pingire, Kadungulu and
Kabwara, the faithful pastors and PEP leaders

Give thanks to God for lives transformed
and lives saved through the work of PAG Soroti and the Love Africa partnership